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Monday, 5 March 2018

Does having a strong oral language focus affect achievement in literacy and maths for students who come in with below standard oracy skills?

Building on from last year.

One key aspect of trying to develop better oral language last year was having regular tapatoru sharing sessions where the children would get into groups of 3 (knees touching) and follow a format of Buddy A asks Buddy B a question to which they reply, then Buddy B ask Buddy C etc.

Positives:

This formalised structure helped listening and repeating skills. It modeled correct language structure which the children then gotto practise. It also modeled the asking and answering of questions.

Limitations:

It was too set so didn’t really encourage extended conversations. Most children answered with a short, simple sentence. While some could have coped with extending it so it was more like a conversation, others struggled with it as it was.

This year so far

I have been trying to get the basic tapatoru routine going but time has been a bit limited with swimming to get it going well. We have had a go at respoding to someone’s ideas by asking more questions. This means the other children in the group need to listen more actively. Over the rest of the term the aim is to try and introduce more of the Talk Moves such as repeating, rephrasingand adding on to someone else’s ideas.

DMIC Maths

DMIC maths with a strong emphasis on children exploring maths ideas through solving problems and explaining theirs’ and others’ thinking is another good opportunity to develop these oracy skills. At present however it is very much a work in progress in trying to implement it successfully.

Recording Oral Language To Make It Repeatable

I think that one way children can develop their storytelling is through drawing. Allowing them the space and time to draw more extended pictures helps them include more details in their thoughts and stories which in turn means they have more stimulus to talk about in more detail. I have begun to record children talking about their stories. This is also a way of them being able to relisten to themselves talk and share their ideas with others.

Talk Through Play

Through the children’s playit is really fascinating to see their language develop. Given the opportunity to interract, negotiate, respond to eachother, and be imaginiative, more richeroral language interrations occur.It would be good to find ways to capitalise on this more.

Monday, 6 November 2017

In today's staff meeting we were looking at how Learn, Create Share has helped bring about acceleration. We looked at one child in particular and focussed on what evidence of acceleration there was. and what particular examples of learning (that implemented Learn, Create, Share) may have supported this acceleration.My inquiry this year has been looking at implementing the Quick 60 Literacy Programme and improving Oral Language. In looking at Oral Language in particular many of the children come in with very low skills - operating at 1-2 years below where a 5 year old should be. There are several components of our programme that have supported the acceleration of Oral Language acquisition. We regularly have the routine of sharing in a group of 3. We practice asking a question to a buddy and then the buddy answering using a set language pattern. This modelling and repetition has really had a positive impact on oral language skills. For one particular child his early testing showed that he struggled to say a three word sentence. He could say a dog, and reply to the question 'What colour is the dog?' by saying black but couldn't say a black dog. Last week when talking about the bike track said "You have to ride bike carefully." Although his lformation of words is still at times difficult to understand he is continuing to improve in putting his ideas together with more complexity and sharing them with others.However when reflecting about what impact Learn Create Share has had, I came to the realisation that we could have been taking this learning further by sharing it online and making it rewindable. Part of the difficulty is needing to manage the children learning these routines, and being on hand to support the process. However despite these challenges it would be good to try to regularly capture what happens in these sessions. I know the children really enjoy seeing themselves on the TV or online, and it will help for them to hear themselves talking. It also will be a great way to record their progress. Another way of accelerating oral language is giving the children loads of opportunities to play. Having times where the children can be building, playing with sand, dressing up, making things with play dough, and drawing, provides situations where the children are being imaginative, sharing ideas and negotiating with others. This all help extend the children's language and vocabulary. While I have captured some of these moments it would be good to regularly record this to be able to play it back to the children and share it with family.

Sunday, 5 November 2017

Here is an interesting article I read today about dramatic play. It is the realisation I have come to also that giving children opportunities to play in their own imaginative way is great for their social skills, language skills and thinking skills. This is an area I would like to definitely like to explore more next year. I think those experiences would also be a great starting point for extending oral language in the more structured way I have been doing this year.

Tuesday, 24 October 2017

Monday, 14 August 2017

A fellow teacher came across this clip about 'Grit' which I found really thought-provoking.Angela Lee Duckworth, (a teacher turned psychologist), defines "Grit" as passion and perseverance for long-term goals. Her studies found it was the most significant indicator for success. Although there have been few studies done on it she says having grit is something you can teach.

So should we purposefully be teaching grit considering its impact?

Articles like these make me reevaluate what we are trying to achieve in our reception class. The past term I have continued to struggle with the balance of getting the nuts and bolts of literacy underway with the intensive Quick 60 programme, while also trying to incorporate play-based learning, as well as trying to shape students into the Pt England Way in order to cope with the structure and expectations of classroom and school life their journey here will involve.

It feels that the main emphasis ends up being on shaping in order to have a classroom that is managed and prepared well but I'm not sure that this is the way to go. In order to undertake the intensive literacy teaching requires the other children to be able to be more self-managing. While having free playing is generally easier in term of keeping children engaged and on track it does need a greater variety of equipment like in kindy and also does little to prepare them for what their school-life beyond the reception class will be like. So I have tried to have a mixture of structured activities and free choice playing. But some students really struggle with the structured activities. So on reflection it feels that the main lessons I am teaching are that at school you have to do what is asked of you and there are consequences if you don't, and rewards if you do......not really the learning I was hoping for.

Big question. Should we really be having such a focus on beginning to learn the nuts and bolts of literacy when to do so requires so much of the teacher's time and focus? Or should we be putting more emphasis on building things like grit, thinking skills and social skills?

How can I design a programme that achieves the best results and what are these results? What qualities are we trying to achieve and what are the priorities of those qualities? How much emphasis can we put on certain attributes over others which may be to the detriment of others?

Monday, 3 April 2017

Sunday, 26 February 2017

Last year after looking at possibilities for using the reading recovery method but in a small group. we decided that this year we would trial the Quick 60 programme. A separate component of Quick 60 is a Foundation Programme; a new entrant class where the emphasis is on a structured method of learning the alphabet letters and sounds along with the basic words and early reading understandings. We decided we would also trial a Quick 60 Foundation reception class with the idea that children would stay in this class for a term or term and a 1/2 before being transitioned into the class they would be in for the rest of the year.

CREATIVE PLAY

Initially I arranged a visit to the Point England Kindergarten to see how best I could provide an environment that was a good transition into the expectations of school. I was impressed with the thinking skills and problem solving the kindergarten setting provided, with lots of opportunities for creative play and meaningful interactions between children. Given interesting and engaging activities lead to children having opportunities to hold conversations which extended their vocabulary and language structures while also extending their thinking, problem solving skills and social skills. I had the realisation that at school we too quickly limit the possibilities for children to nurture these skills by giving them such a narrow range of experiences in their daily school life. I decided that I would try to incorporate more free play into my reception programme alongside the very structured literacy learning the Quick 60 programme provided.

ORAL LANGUAGE

Another factor I wanted to include in the programme which connected well with the creative play was an emphasis on oral language building. I had come across an article that showcased a British school where they had incorporated a major focus on oral language across the whole school. Starting from day one the children learn skills in not only being able to share their own ideas but how to add onto others ideas, to question and to listen. By year 3 or 4 (about the year level shown in the clip) it was evident the children were not only very articulate in giving their opinions but had also developed greater critical thinking skills where they could look at issues from different perspectives and consider differing viewpoints and had at the same time also developed a set of effective social skills.

INQUIRY

In light of the above considerations I have decided my inquiry focus will be..

How can a highly structured literacy programme (Quick 60) in conjunction with a focus on oral language improve outcomes over a 15 week new entrant programme.

SO FAR…WEEK 5

My class has filled already so it has been a full-on 4 weeks. I have been impressed with how quickly the children have adjusted to a new environment with new routines and expectations. They are amazing!!

What I have found is working well is the creative play and using that as a base to help extend language. Having an experience that children have just engaged in that has been interesting for them but that as a teacher I know what they were doing means I can help extend their language when sharing about what they have been doing. I have been trying to incorporate daily sharing sessions. What I have discovered in this though is the real limitations the children have in expressing their thoughts and ideas and even in answering a question relevantly. This has meant I have kept the sharing sessions to a quite structured format with children in groups of three taking turns to ask the set question, “What activity did you find interesting” followed by a response then the question, “Who were you playing with?” Initially most of the children really struggled with this but with repetition and familiarity are becoming more confident.

The first few weeks has been focussed on learning new routines and practising them, especially with new children starting every week. Already 2 have been shifted into another Year 1 class which has meant that 20 have started in the first 4 weeks. From week 2 I have been trying to include regular literacy small group teaching using the Quick 60 routine. However the reality is that for new new entrants it doesn’t quite run to plan as expected. Everything takes way longer, so I’m not sure that I’m as on track with where we are expecting to be able to get them to by the end of the term.